Celebrating female leadership and this year’s Loerie winners - 21 Aug 2017

You'd need to have skipped the country and been far away from social media to not have known the 39th annual Loeries took place this past weekend. In a nutshell: BBDO MEA took the title of regional agency group of the year, KFC Africa CMO Mike Middleton was awarded this year's Marketing Leadership and Innovation Award, and Nathan Reddy, chief creative officer and founder of Grid Worldwide Branding and Design, was this year's Hall of Fame inductee. Click through to the full winners' list, scroll through all the latest updates in our Loeries Creative Week Durban special section and keep an eye out for our special edition newsletter in your inbox later today if you're still hungry for more.

It's also still #WomensMonth, and we have reams of new content for you in that regard. First off the bat, this week's #Newsmaker, Tanja Lategan, is brand new MD at Creative Spark. Jessica Tennant finds out what it took to crack the so-called glass ceiling as a woman in leadership in the digital space and how she'd encourage other women to do the same.

Then, Danette Breitenbach covered last week's FairLady Women of the Future Awards, in partnership with Santam, and found out how this year's winner and rising star aim to empower others with their winnings as well as why Santam's so focused on supporting SMMEs in the fledgling stage.

Breitenbach also covered last week's Standard Bank Top Women Awards, where the legendary Yvonne Chaka Chaka broke into song when she was recognised for her lifetime commitment to women's empowerment. Click here, we have video evidence!
The international Women in Marketing Awards, which has identified a global need to celebrate women in marketing, advertising and communications, is also calling for South African entrants. With the deadline for entry submissions set for midnight on Monday, 18 September 2017, there's still time to put yours together.

We also have ongoing coverage of last week's customer-experience extravaganza, CEM Africa. Click through for Louise Marsland's feedback on embracing a CX ‘citizen first' strategy in government, and my overviews on Adobe's talk titled "'Be an experience business or be out of business'; Brandlove's presentation on the importance of trusting your ‘always on' employees; the keynote panels' CX predictions for the future; and Juanita Pienaar's overview of the first CXA Awards.

Happy reading!